


Deprived

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Whumptober [6]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: All hurt no comfort, Angst, Episode: s11e16 Turn On Tune In Drop Dead, Gen, Isolation, Nick Stokes Whump, Sensory Deprivation, Whump, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27100558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: What if Nick had ended up in the sensory deprivation tank on that campus?
Series: Whumptober [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1504745
Comments: 12
Kudos: 10





	Deprived

**Author's Note:**

> An AU to the events of 11x16, Turn On, Tune In, Drop Dead. Also happens to fit with the Whumptober prompt #24, You're Not Making Any Sense
> 
> shoutout to deltajackdalton who gave this a read for me!

Flickering bulbs flitter light in and out of the campus hallway. He thinks nothing of it, the initial unease of the atmospheric crime scene had long since faded. He had gotten over the cluttered nature of the neglected hallway, the overgrown nature of the scientist’s laboratory that really reminded him of Grissom’s office, with the almost hoarding of materials that lined every inch of the walls, shelves curving in an almost collapse from the weight of all that’s stored on it. 

He had gotten over the 333 on the door that he tentatively walked through, without a second thought of his guardian angel’s warning to him. He shoves the coincidence into the furthest recess of his mind, where he keeps all of the other discomforts he collects from the disturbing, horrific crime scenes, putting off the time for existential dread and crises for later, when he’s not working...when he’s  _ supposed  _ to be sleeping. 

Besides, he’s been in the room before.

But not alone.

Though he has a sneaking suspicion backed by the fact that he had heard a clattering noise that drew him here in the first place, that really, he’s not alone.

He connects his gun and flashlight at his wrists, walking slowly and taking in every detail he can, searching the shadows for signs of movement and finds himself tossing aside the plastic flaps of the draw curtain to find the decorated tank in the center of the room, no longer occupied by any corpses, but still half filled with water.

He shines his light in, half expecting to find another corpse, but instead the void is solitary, luring his head in for a few seconds before he hears a noise behind him--

Mid-spin, something knocks into his arm brandishing his gun, it clatters to the floor--he quickly raises his other, his grip on the flashlight readjusting to brandish it as a weapon--but then his neck is chopped and he falls back, not to the floor, but slamming into tensely contained water--

“No!” he shouts, his fingers keeping grasp on the flashlight as he tries to kick his feet onto the lid that seals him into the complete darkness of the tank. He pounds his fists on the wall--or it the ceiling?--as he flails his body in the water, no longer still in his panicking presence.

The flashlight’s beam bounces around him, further disorienting him--he can’t tell if he shuts it off, or just simply shuts his eyes to rid himself of the sight of just how  _ small  _ the space is, how his legs don’t quite fit--he’s bent at the knees, his elbows keep bumping against the walls--a sharp slap to his angled nerves only serves to deepen his hysteria as this situation is far too similar to one he endured nearly six years ago--

“LET ME OUT OF HERE!” he demands in what he feels, is an embarrassing scream.

There’s a sliding, grinding sheathing of metal across the outside of the box--it reminds him of the door closing and locking on a prison cell--teardrops mix with the water that he’s indirectly splashing onto his own face--his gulps for air are short and strangled, the only noise that echoes through the sudden silence of his new tomb, besides the scraping of his splitting nails against the metal.

He tries to reign himself in, quiet himself--perhaps his assailant will think he died, open up the lid, and he can escape--

Moments pass. Minutes. Hours? The only sound he can hear is his own.

He slows his breathing, intensifies its weight but the air is thick. Too thick. He has no support this time around, messy calculations with changing numbers as he tries to account for the air he’s already wasted, for just how much water is in the tank, for the dimensions of this depriving container that is robbing him of more than just air, it seems to be robbing him of  _ life.  _

His body agrees--though internally he’s still on an everlasting fire that the water can’t extinguish, physically he feels his muscles relax. Limp, almost, as his hands slide down and plop into the water. His feet continue to press against the lid, but the strain on his leg muscles falters, his knees wobble in a weak twitch as the wet fabric of his clothes settles into a cold slap against his pruning skin. 

He closes his eyes, longing for the whir of the fan and finding himself daring to miss the green glow in opposition to the harsh white of the flickering, waterlogged flashlight.

Even the beads of water that slide down his face remind him of the ants crawling on his skin. He wishes for the itching burn instead of this freezing numbness.

Wishes so hard, that when he opens his eyes and pulls up his flashlight, he finds that the scratched metal surrounding him morphs into a wallpaper of packed dirt, dark veins connecting the malleable material slammed against the walls around him.

A large circle expands between his feet, a spotlight that flickers on--though really, it’s just him fumbling with his flashlight that he accidentally aims at his face--he pulls his feet together to cover it, the light disappears.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he begins to cry. 

There’s no tape recorder to tell him what he did to deserve this (his job,) nor to leave his final words (that he won’t really get to say, his final breath will surely be a final anguished scream.)

There’s no glowstick to replenish the dim light; the flashlight is losing its life just as he’s losing his, though he does find a certain comfort in the darkness, unable to see the fine details such as his own terrified reflection in front of him. Instead, his vision fills with his favorite colors, bright and vibrant and providing him with nostalgia for the overly colorful tones of his childhood, before the spectrum was tainted with greys and darker variants splotching over his innocence. He tries to envision the outer coloring of his prison, the swirling pastel chalk to mask the horror of darkness inside. 

There’s no gun to end it all instantly, instead he’s forced to just...float. Wait for it. Wait for the final ounce of air that will enter his body, for the final exchange of oxygen for his production of carbon dioxide only to be left hanging by a thread that snaps away from existence as he knows it. 

And though he knows it’s coming, he’ll never know when. 

He’s worked this job long enough to know that life is too short, death is a certainty, and it doesn’t discriminate between those who deserve it, and those that do. If things ever seem too good, they most definitely are. 

Just like the night at the restaurant. 

The tears begin again, and through the choking sounds of his own sobs, he swears for a second...that he hears a knocking.

“H-hello? I’m in here!” he cries out with hope, and is surprised at the response.

_ “Hang on, buddy, we got you! We got you!” _ a muffled yell, a distinctly familiar voice.

He puts his hands to the ceiling, pounding, as if that would speed up the process of building this link to the past, an opportunity to hear a ghost’s voice, perhaps even converse with him--

“Get me out, pl-please!” 

_ “It’s okay, shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” _ the voice soothes him. 

“Wa-wa-r-rick--” he gasps sharply, as being told that “it’s okay” seems to send his body through a whole new wave of panic, searching for the state of being in such a way. To be filled with the air that is being painstakingly drawn out of his body. Filled with blood untainted and unthinned, flowing under healthy skin that isn’t shriveling like a raisin. Filled with energy to think, to feel, to  _ move.  _ Filled with a satisfied appetite that keeps his body from growling at him, berating him for not only its dehydration but its starvation as well.

Filled with love, which is what each word that speaks to him is lined with trace in--if he had a sample brought to the lab for analysis, the results would be one hundred percent friendship. Companionship. Confirmation that in this world that always seems to knock him down, going so far as to lock and bury him away so deep that no soul could find him, that  _ he’s not alone. _

_ “I got you, Nicky, I always got you…”  _

He presses his hands flat, drops of pressurized blood dripping onto his face but he keeps his darkness-adjusted eyes focused above, waiting for his angel to rescue him--

The lid at his feet is opened.

He’s pulled out, screaming.

They try to be gentle, limiting their touches as he flounders on the ground.

He’s overstimulated. 

And slightly embarrassed, but mostly upset.

Deprived of all senses, of course his mind defaulted to the box. Anybody who knew what he had gone through could see that plain as day--which is why nobody says anything beyond asking, “are you okay?”

They know he’s not.

But worse than that, he was deprived of an opportunity. One final conversation with his departed best friend. 

_ “Throw me back in,” _ he rasps out in a weak plea to his caretaker, before he falls into a boundless void of sleep.


End file.
